


To House A Cube

by derwentian



Category: Mission to Zyxx (Podcast)
Genre: Bargie is mentioned like twice but doesn't actually appear even though she's the setting, Gen, Humor, Missing Scene, canon-typical Pleck being stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derwentian/pseuds/derwentian
Summary: Pleck pauses, looks around the kitchen in search of something that is neither moist nor a weapon.“Hm. There really aren’t a lot of appliances in a kitchen that a cube would like, huh?”
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	To House A Cube

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-114 but pre-116. There's a serious content deficit around here and I think there's a lot of untapped comedic potential in C-53's temporary lack of body, so here we are.

Things have been chaotic aboard the Bargarean Jade ever since the incident on Klongtdt (which they’ve somehow managed to keep secret so far). There was that week immediately after C’s frame was destroyed where Pleck forgot how cubes work—he’s eternally grateful that neither Dar nor Bargie have mentioned how sad he was that week, if only for the sake of his dignity—and now they’ve remembered how to put C’s cube in things, but finding a suitable place for him on the ship is a bit of an endeavor. The humidifier and dehumidifier were okay as a temporary thing, but all that moisture isn’t really ideal, so now they just sort of shuffle C’s cube between various household(?) appliances. Of course, that means frequent arguments about which appliance to put him into next, such as the one currently unfolding in the kitchen.

“I’m just saying,” Dar says in a tone that’s a bit too annoyed for _just_ _saying_ something, “I don’t think an _ice dispenser_ is the best place for a cube. You do get that we’re trying to _avoid_ moisture, right?”

Pleck  _ does _ get that, but somehow the idea that an ice maker would have moisture in it slipped his mind. He’s admittedly thinking about other things. “Well, yeah, of course, but I—I just think that maybe C’s tired of being in the fireplace all the time. Maybe he needs, you know, a change of pace? For enrichment?”

That one earns an amused snort from Dar. “ _ Enrichment _ ? What, like a  _ zoo animal _ ?” As usual, they ignore Pleck’s desperate attempts at backtracking. “Do we need to fill a pumpkin with meat so C can roll it around in his  _ enclosure _ ?”

“No, that’s not—I didn’t mean it like that,” Pleck says with his trademark desperate laughter. “That’s not what I meant. Don’t tell C I said that.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Dar still sounds deeply amused, but at least they’re relenting for now. Until he says something else stupid in another minute or two, that is. “So, genius, what’s your plan B for our friend C?”

Fun wordplay there. Pleck laughs at it a little despite the fact that Dar is still roasting him at this very moment. “Hm… Ice cream machine?”

Dar snorts again. “Uh, first off, ice cream is also extremely wet, Pleck.” Right. That’s true. “Second, Bargie  _ sold _ the ice cream machine, remember? To pay off her gambling debts or whatever?”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. I was kind of busy being sad that C was dead, I think.” He didn’t really mean for that to sound like he’s saying Dar  _ wasn’t _ sad to be able to remember that; judging by the lack of negative response, Dar either didn’t notice or is letting him off the hook this time. “Maybe the food processor?”

“I’m not sure giving C knives is a good idea. Especially  _ very fast _ knives.”

“What, you think he’d attack us?”

“No, not really. I just don’t think any of us are really responsible enough to have access to very fast knives. We’re not competent enough.”

They do have a point. This crew’s track record with weaponry is not stellar. “You know what, Dar? That’s entirely fair.” Pleck pauses, looks around the kitchen in search of something that is neither moist nor a weapon. “Hm. There really aren’t a lot of appliances in a kitchen that a cube would like, huh?”

Dar goes ‘mhm’ and leans against the fridge, narrowly avoiding shoving their elbow into the ice dispenser. “Yeah, that’s probably why they usually put cubes in  _ droids _ and not  _ furniture _ .”

“Well, that’s not entirely true. The humidifier had a cube!” Dar shrugs, but has nothing else to say on the matter. “I’m not sure they’re, like, fully sentient, though. The one in Bargie’s humidifier never talked or anything.”

“Maybe he just thought you were boring,” Dar says in a friendly tone while rummaging through the fridge. “But then, he never talked to me either, so I guess we’re both boring.”

It probably wasn’t meant as self-deprecation, but that’s how it sounds to Pleck. “Well, you’re  _ definitely  _ not boring, Dar. So I guess the cube in the humidifier was just a jerk, and that’s that.” They make a vague appreciative noise at Pleck’s misplaced affirmations, but apparently don’t feel like talking anymore. Fair enough. “I’m just gonna put him in the toaster. That should be dry enough, right?” Dar offers no counterargument—they’re busy gathering ingredients to construct a comically large sandwich—so into the toaster goes the cube.

The toaster whirrs for a second while it does whatever electronics do with cubes, followed by a  _ ding! _ sound. “Ah, the toaster,” C-53 says. His voice echoes a bit, like it’s being piped out from under the bread-slot thingies Pleck doesn’t know the name of. “Are you tired of burning your bagels, Ambassador Decksetter?”

The thought hadn’t crossed his mind at all, but of course that’s how it might look. “Tired of—? No! I didn’t put you in there so you could toast things for me!” Now that he thinks about it, though… “What, are you saying you could do that?”

“That  _ is _ what a toaster does, Ambassador Decksetter.” C’s using the very specific tone that means he’s both mildly annoyed and deeply amused by Pleck’s lapses in intelligence. “From here I have complete control over the more nuanced toaster settings that you can’t access on the user end.”

Dar makes a surprised noise, drawn back into the conversation despite the siren song of eating sandwich ingredients straight from the container. “Wait, are you telling me that toasters have  _ secret toasting options _ that only droids can access?”

“That’s correct.”

“But why?! Droids don’t even  _ eat _ toast!”

“No, but the people who own droids do.”

Pleck makes an ‘oof’ noise and Dar looks a bit pained, insofar as one can with a mouthful of lunch meat. “Well, I  _ was _ gonna ask you to toast the bread for my sandwich, but now it’s like a droid-rights thing and I don’t wanna make it weird.”

There shouldn’t be any conceivable way for a toaster to give off the air of nodding appreciatively, but somehow that happens regardless. “Thank you, Dar. And besides, even if I did, I don’t actually know how any of these settings work. I would probably burn the toast pretty badly.”

“Wait—” Pleck can’t help laughing at that— “you’re in the toaster now, but you don’t know how it works? Don’t droids just—just  _ know _ how to use stuff their cubes are in?”

Against all odds, the toaster manages to make Pleck feel as though he’s on the receiving end of one of C’s more withering stares. It’s pretty impressive, actually. “Ambassador Decksetter, if I put your brain in a Tellurian dirtbike right now, would  _ you _ understand how it works?”

“I mean—I mean, maybe I would, I don’t—”

“You would not.”

“Okay.”

Dar pauses in their digging through the utensil drawer to laugh at Pleck’s expense, as they usually do in these exchanges. “Well, a sandwich of the proper magnitude wouldn’t hold up on non-toasted bread, so I’ll just eat the fixin’s on their own.”

“You’re already doing that, though. You’ve eaten an entire tomato and half of  _ my _ thing of rotisserie garfon in the last two minutes.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re  _ supposed _ to do that while you’re making a sandwich. If you were to, say, eat mayo out of the jar with a spoon—” they promptly do so, which is grotesque to witness— “that’s a clear sign you’ve given up on sandwich-making. And I have, so here we are.”

“This is why we’re the least competent ambassador team in the quadrant,” C-53 sighs.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback are appreciated!


End file.
